Like Spying on Hope
by balladofbliss
Summary: "Because it's not enough for someone to know me," he says at last. "I don't think there's a point if someone's not you." Sam/Andy, with platonic appearances by Nick and Marlo; based on episodes through 4x07 and season-long promo clips. One-shot.


**A/N:** It's not that the McSwarek ship is sinking. It just needed to send out an SOS, that's all.

I borrow from certain promo clips here, but nothing especially spoiler-ish beyond 4x07. I'm also absolutely sure that nothing is going to turn out this way in the coming episodes, but it doesn't mean I don't wish it would. The ridiculous length of this one-shot is in part to make up for the fact that per the demands of real life, I'm probably not going to be writing anything else until well into the hiatus. I hope you enjoy – and before I forget, thank you all so very much for the Rookie's Choice nominations.

**Disclaimer: **I don't own Rookie Blue. Title comes from Dar Williams' "You Rise and Meet the Day."

* * *

Andy McNally is nothing if not true to her word. In her relatively short lifetime, she's experienced more deception and betrayal than many, and so she strives to avoid subjecting anyone else to the same awful treatment whenever she can help it. It's the reason she steels herself and kisses Nick back after Frank and Noelle's wedding – okay, part of it is that she's kind of pissed at Sam for how he continually stares at her from across the room before turning back to his girlfriend (who might have some psychological issues, but stupidity isn't one of them). But as Nick's lips trail down her neck, she keeps reminding herself that a strong friendship is a good starting point for a solid relationship, and Nick is nothing if not dependable – minus the time undercover he held a gun to her head, which he _had_ to do, she gets that, but God, was it ever terrifying and Sam would probably kill Nick if he ever found out, and _enough already, Andy, focus_ – the point is, maybe this isn't the worst idea.

She puts the brakes on things before any irrevocable moves are made, though, and grabs a ride home with Dov and Chloe, hoping a night at home by herself will allow her to figure out a way to let Nick down gently without destroying everything they've been to one another over the past year. Shouldn't be hard, for a girl who's always been one of the guys.

By the time she's getting dressed the next day for her afternoon shift, she's still got nothing.

(Although she has to admit as she dodges a couple calls from Nick on her walk to work: certain things suddenly make a lot more sense. His constant reminders while undercover of how he's not Sam, how Sam had hurt her seemed at the time like standard if not repetitive breakup-buddy mantras, and maybe they were, but now it's hard to tell if and when they became something else.)

She manages to avoid being alone with him for several days – actually makes crackly noises into the phone to imitate bad static one day – and when he finally corners her outside the locker room at the end of the week, she manages to tell him half the truth. _Give me some time to come around,_ she requests. _I'm just really worried about ruining our friendship._

He accepts this explanation well enough, and Andy knows it buys her indefinite time, but she can't help but wonder if Nick is aware of the part she's omitted: _I'm not over Sam and I probably never will be_.

* * *

Nearly a month after Frank and Noelle tie the knot, Oliver tosses her the keys as they're heading out to the cruiser for patrol, his aviators having been firmly in place throughout parade. "Stick to your inside voice, please, McNally," he instructs. "And by 'inside voice', I mean a whisper or below. Actually, scratch that, I can hear you just fine if you think."

She shoots him an inquisitive look, and he shrugs. "Apparently I like homemade mead."

Andy grins, thinking back to his rather quirky wedding date. "Gotcha."

"See, now _that_ is not an inside voice, " Oliver groans as he opens the passenger-side door.

The first hour or so of their shift consists of driving around in fairly comfortable silence until the dispatcher calls them to the site of a possible B&E. Oliver winces as he flips on the lights and sirens and Andy steps on the gas. They reach the townhouse complex in a few minutes, heading quickly to the address given to them, where a thirties-ish man appears frantic on the front stoop.

"I told her," he yells as soon as he sees Oliver and Andy approach. "Over two weeks ago I told her, and now look what happened!"

"Sir, who did you tell what to?" Andy asks calmly.

"That other cop," he snaps. "The one who showed up here when I found my ex-wife trying to break in, back on the seventeenth! I get home from work and she's trying to pick the damn lock. We settled this months ago – she's got her stuff, I've got mine, but now she decided the alimony isn't enough and wants to steal all my stuff."

Oliver sighs. "What's your name, sir?"

"Brad Saunders," he clarifies. "And the lunatic I was stupidly married to is Alexa Black. I can tell you where she lives, her phone number, because I _know_ this was her, and I _told_ that cop…"

"Wait, wait, wait." Andy holds up a hand. "What happened on the seventeenth, after you found Alexa at the door?"

He rolls his eyes. "You know, big fight, she drove off, I called you people. And like I keep trying to tell you, this lady cop who shows up – looks kind of like you, just shorter, not as good looking – she just kept interrupting me when I tried to explain and ask for a restraining order. Talking over me, telling me to calm down and call a locksmith. I'm like, lady, _you're _the one who needs to calm down, and she's all, 'don't talk back to me,' like I'm in kindergarten. And anyway, changing the locks didn't make a bit of difference, because… well, come look at this."

Sure enough, one of the sliding glass doors leading from the small back patio to the kitchen is shattered, and various big-ticket items visible in recent photos of the townhouse – a plasma TV, a laptop, a small filing cabinet that according to Brad holds important banking records – are missing. The upstairs bedroom has been ransacked; Brad speculates that Alexa was looking for what had been her engagement ring, his own family heirloom that he'd received back as part of the divorce settlement. "Fortunately, it's at my brother's place, but she took all my files, so now I have to worry about her stealing my identity on top of everything else," he says angrily. "What was the point of even reporting things the first time?"

They assure Brad that they'll handle it, and are able to recover his belongings and files reasonably quickly. (Alexa isn't skilled at covering her tracks; when they apprehend her, she makes it clear that she's more interested in revenge for revenge's sake than actual harm.) Back at the station, Andy knows who's responsible for the original report before she even pulls it up. Sure enough, Marlo took Brad's first call while riding solo, but her name is about the only thing clear on the report. The actual content is jumbled, to the point that without Brad's explanation, one would have no idea what had actually been reported or called. As Andy studies the nonsensical ramblings, a sinking feeling beginning to develop in her chest, she hears Oliver call, "McNally!"

She turns around to see him hustling down the stairs, hangover evidently forgotten. "Did you see this?" he asks, a hard copy of the report in his hand.

She swallows and nods. "Yeah, I did."

"Well, there's more where that came from," he explains, flipping to another page. "Up until a couple months ago, they were clear, perfect even – but then she started dropping important information and going into detail about things that were totally trivial. See this one here? It's half a page about peeling paint in an apartment, but the original call was a noise complaint. The last few weeks, they've just gotten worse – I don't know how many cases this could compromise. And I know you might have other reasons to take issue with her, but I've gotta tell you, lately she's been _weird_."

Andy calls to mind every successful hand of poker she's ever played and sets her face accordingly. "What do you mean, weird?"

Oliver rolls over a chair from a nearby desk, taking a seat and leaning forward. "Just all over the place. Ask how her day's going and she bites your head off, asks why you want to know, then cracks a joke about it in the next breath and she's off. It's like paranoia to the extreme, but more than that. If I didn't know better, I'd say she's –"

"Manic?" Andy supplies before she can stop herself, feeling her eyes widen.

Oliver's eyes narrow in kind. "You know something?"

After he subjects her to half an hour of 20 Questions and more than one allusion to strangling, she and Oliver end up in Frank's office, Andy finally disclosing Marlo's confession when the senior officers assure her that her silence is doing far more potential harm than good. Frank sighs heavily. "I knew something was up with her, but I could never imagine this having gone on so long without anyone knowing."

"Do you think something could've, I don't know, made her snap?" Oliver asks, looking from Frank to Andy.

Frank raises an eyebrow. "Maybe when she and Swarek called things quits, it was just too much to take. I didn't know they were even that serious, but it's hard to tell with things like this."

At that, Andy's head snaps up, but she manages to refrain from grilling her staff sergeant for details about her ex's romantic life (or apparent lack thereof). It's only after Frank dismisses the two of them that she shoots Oliver a sidelong glance and hisses, "When did that happen?"

He smirks. "What, all of a sudden you're fine with talking about other people? Sam broke it off after the wedding reception. Something about too much emotional distance to work with, but I'm pretty sure that dress you were wearing was a close second."

"Sam told you all that?" Not that Andy isn't glad he's opening up about things to a friend; it's just a little hard to believe, is all.

"He confirmed it when I asked. Chloe heard them in the courtyard."

_Well, then_. In an attempt to avoid expressing joy at what's ultimately Marlo's misery, Andy shakes her head. "You're kind of a gossip queen, Oliver."

He shrugs. "One of us has to be."

Neither Marlo nor Frank are at Parade the next day, and Marlo doesn't make another appearance for close to three weeks. When Andy finally sees her, she's in street clothes on the way to the parking lot.

She meets Andy's eyes, and before Andy can attempt to generate an apology or explanation, Marlo puts up her hands. "Don't sweat it, McNally. You did what you had to do, I get it." She's much more grounded than she's been in recent history, though still plenty talkative. "I thought I'd be fine without medication. Maybe Sam would never have to know if I wasn't on them. But at the end of the day, it didn't make a difference. He was waiting for an excuse that he could use instead of just saying outright that I'm not you, and he found one."

Andy thinks about denying that she was Sam's motivation for ending the relationship, but realizes she veritably can't. "What happens now?"

Marlo sighs. "Desk duty indefinitely, twice-weekly shrink appointments, bloodwork every month to make sure my meds are at therapeutic levels."

"That's a lot of conditions."

"That's what happens when you make a lot of mistakes." Marlo's clearly fighting to keep her expression neutral. "Look, I've got to get to the pharmacy before it closes, so…"

Andy watches her go, guilt creeping over her despite knowing that she did the right thing. She doesn't hear Nick coming up behind her, and flinches when he puts a hand on her shoulder. "Everything okay?"

She smiles at him quickly. "Yeah. Yeah, it's fine. Hey, do you want to see a movie after shift?"

He raises an eyebrow. "Has the embargo on zombies been lifted yet?"

"Sure, why not?"

(Maybe the cinematic terror will distract her from the real-life fears she's having trouble shaking.)

* * *

Throughout all of this, she and Sam have been working together amiably. He clearly knows she's aware of the breakup – of course, by now every cop in the division is – but neither of them ever bring it up, and she's perfectly okay with that.

(His former relationship with Marlo is not so much the elephant in the room as it is a kitten in a room full of elephants.)

They talk here and there – generally nothing too serious, but occasionally Sam will say something cryptic or give her a look that prompts a double take. It feels all too familiar, despite her near-certainty that things won't follow the same path (in good ways or bad). Then one day, she spends the last couple hours of a double trying to help him make sense of some particularly esoteric case files.

"Everything all right there, McNally?" he asks as she yawns for the fortieth time in an hour.

Her head snaps up. "Oh, yeah. All good over here. Just reading the same page over and over with no comprehension of what's on it."

He holds up a paper cup. "You want one of these?"

"Green tea?" She snorts. "Thanks, but I don't know how helpful a cup of grass clippings would be."

"It's coffee," he clarifies. "Turns out I couldn't live without feeling jittery."

She smiles. "As much as I appreciate the thought, I'd be up all night and I have early shift tomorrow." Feeling somewhat emboldened, she asks, "What else you got?"

He pretends to think for a moment. "Cheap entertainment?"

"Try me."

"Okay, what do you call a reptile who keeps having kids?"

She wrinkles her eyebrows. "Nature?"

"No, a fertile turtle." He raises his coffee cup and takes a self-satisfied sip.

It's completely stupid, and yet she needs a good five minutes to collect herself. Once she's wiped the tears from her eyes and downed a glass of water to get rid of her hiccups, she grins at him. "What is _wrong _with you?"

He looks at her, his smile turning somewhat wistful. "You tell me."

_Oh, come on, _now_ you want to talk? Would it kill you to work on your timing, Swarek? _"Sam, I don't…"

He puts a hand up. "Look, if you're happy, then great. Sorry, I shouldn't have even… let's just finish this."

Andy puts the file down on the desk and stands up. "No. What are you even talking about?"

Sam looks at the wall above her head. "You and Collins. Good for you, all right? That's great."

"We're not…" Andy runs her hands along the sides of her temples. "You want to know the truth?"

"Sure," Sam says dispassionately. "Have at it."

She takes a deep breath. "I care about him, but I don't feel the same way he does. And really, I'm scared that I'm eventually going to go along with it so I don't hurt him. Which of course is totally stupid and going to hurt him even more in the long run, but..."

"What, the military complex doesn't do it for you?"

She grits her teeth and forces herself to see his biting remark for the defense mechanism it is. "He's not you."

She watches his face soften, stone-cold turning to hope.

"Can we talk?" he asks.

Andy sighs. "About what, about us? How we're never on the same page, ever? I don't want to go through all the same crap, Sam. I can't do that again."

"You said you feel like you don't know me," he says. "I want to fix that."

"Why?"

He pinches the bridge of his nose. "Because it's not enough for _someone _to know me," he says at last. "I don't think there's a point if someone's not you."

She opens her mouth with the intention of saying _yes, name the time and place, _but a sizeable yawn manages to escape before the words can emerge. He smiles, remembering the length of her shift, and (with some trepidation) that a shaggy young canine who's still a good ways away from housebroken has been cooped up in his house all day.

"Call it a day, all right? We'll talk tomorrow," he proposes. "After shift, we'll pick up some Thai, go to my place, if that works – there's actually something I want to show you."

She's fighting a smile, words of affection and joking double entendres running through her mind at an alarmingly rapid rate, even for her. "Can we get curry puffs?" is what she finally comes up with.

He shakes his head with a grin. "Yes, McNally. Now go get changed, would you? I'll give you a ride home before you end up passing out under a bus shelter."

* * *

She's hoping for the fastest ten hours of her life when she arrives the next morning, but based on the eight-by-tens slathering the white board during Parade, it's questionable at best.

"Angie Rodriguez, 17 years old," Traci intones. "She was found in the basement of a house party last night, unconscious after suffering significant head trauma. She's in critical condition at Victoria Mercy right now, but the doctors say the bleeding in her brain makes it unlikely she'll be able to give us any information for a while, if at all. Rape exam showed multiple signs of assault, and her tox screen was positive for ketamine and GHB. She's the fifth one in the last two months to present like this: the same drugs in her system, same injuries, and the same mark." She points to an image of the words 'he's the best I've ever had' scrawled across the girl's upper chest with a black marker, then motions to what looks like various high-school portraits in turn. "Last time we saw this was Kaitlin Farrell, 16 years old, three weeks ago. Our prime suspect at that point was Tucker Cordero – 19 years old, popular enough at school to go to parties, but has a tough reputation and access to whatever his cousins in the Los Fuegos gang bring around – but we didn't have enough evidence to hold him, and he wasn't talking. So go find something. We need as many people on this as we can get, before someone else gets hurt."

Andy remembers Sam taking that last one hard; when Kaitlin died of her injuries a week later, he flipped over a desk in the D's office. She figures she'll be partnered with Dov again, as she's been most of the week; Sam will probably be in the office or out with Traci helping to run things. It's a bit of a surprise, therefore, when Sam walks over to her. "McNally, you and me," he says with a practiced nonchalance, jerking his thumb toward the door. When she looks up at him with a raised eyebrow, he shrugs. "No one knows my moves like you do."

To the casual observer, it's a verbal play-punch on the shoulder - ol' buddy, ol' pal, so on and so forth. When it comes to Sam, Andy is not (nor has she ever been) a casual observer. She meets his eyes, sees _I need you right now._

As she nods sharply and gets to her feet, she tries not to imagine those words in a non-professional context. (She's already failed pretty spectacularly by the time they get to the car.)

* * *

Neither Sam nor Andy feels the eyes upon them as they walk past the desk. Marlo watches them file out the door, expression fixed in a stoic frown, until a voice jars her from her muted thoughts. "Morning, Cruz. Looks like it's you and me up here today."

Marlo fixes Nick with a forced smile. "Guess so."

He sits down. "So how you been?"

"Oh, you know." She rolls her eyes. "Another sunny day in paradise."

"Come on, desk isn't so bad." He shrugs.

"Says Mr. Action himself?" She's starting to realize there's not enough mind-numbing paperwork in the world to make this day any less obnoxious.

He grins. "That's actually not how it works all the time. You do whatever's necessary at any given moment. The idea is that serving in any role needed is what's really important."

She straightens a pile of pamphlets. "Any role, huh?"

"Yep." He nods for emphasis. "Did all kinds of crazy stuff in Afghanistan - short order cook for four days, and then another time in the field a medic talked me through cauterizing a pretty big wound. I go where I'm needed, you know?"

"So when McNally needs you to keep her bed warm, does that count as service?" She knows she has no business going there, but it's the most likely thing she can think of to shut up him early in the day.

Sure enough, Collins' entire demeanor changes, his friendly posture taking on a guarded edge. "You don't know what's going on with us, and anyway, that's really inappropriate…"

"Here's what's going on," Marlo says coolly. "You have a thing for her, she has a thing for Sam. You can call it whatever you want, but you and I are the same. We're placeholders until those two get their heads on straight. And I hate to break it to you, Collins, but it looks like that's getting closer to happening every day."

Nick opens his mouth to protest, to clarify, anything other than letting _this_ be the truth – but when all he can come up with are his own echoing words rehashing Swarek's first attempt at a relationship with Andy (_shit, first implies there's going to be a second, doesn't it_), he brings his lips together. "It's been a while since I've had to log in up here," he finally says. "Probably ought to call tech support and figure out my password."

Marlo doesn't smile. She's not happy to see him miserable, nor is she especially miserable herself. She doesn't feel much of anything these days.

* * *

Tucker Cordero isn't in school. "Surprise, surprise," Sam deadpans. "Being on the five-year plan wasn't enough, he decided to go for six." Andy suggests the convenience store at which Tucker's employed part-time; Sam quietly whispers to her to get ready to run when they see him stocking cans through the window, but Tucker just sighs.

"I guess you're not here to get me on truancy," he says quietly. "I just need the money more than I need the diploma right now."

Sam isn't messing around. "Angie Rodriguez. You know her?"

Tucker shrugs. "She's a junior. She's in my trig class. I don't know, we've talked a couple times."

"Where were you last night?"

"Here," Tucker says with conviction. "Doing inventory until almost 2 in the morning after closing, and then my boss drove me home. Go ask him, he'll tell you. Or check the cameras."

"Can anyone confirm what time you got home?" Andy asks.

"My mom yelled at me for about an hour and a half when I walked in the door. Does that count?"

Andy and Sam exchange a look, both attempting to keep the defeat out of their expressions; if it's not Tucker, they're likely back to square one. Sam grudgingly thanks the young man and they turn to leave.

"Did the same thing happen to Angie?"

Andy looks back at Tucker. "Yes."

Tucker shakes his head in disbelief. "You know, I was at that party when Kaitlin Farrell… well, _you_ remember." He looks at Sam pointedly, implicitly referring to the hours of interrogation he underwent. "Remember how I told you my cousin Renato showed up? How he looks like me?"

"Tucker, we went over that," Sam says, his patience clearly wearing thin. "He wasn't at the other three parties…"

"That I know of!" Tucker interrupts. "Look, back when all that happened with Marie and Elissa and… whoever the first one was…"

"Brooke," Sam corrects darkly.

"Yeah, Brooke… Look, I was going out with Betty Merzana that whole time. And when we showed up at whatever party was going on, we were kind of, you know. Distracted. Together. You get me?"

"Yeah, Tucker," Sam says, rolling his eyes. "I get you."

"So maybe Renato was there and I just didn't know it," Tucker says. "He's not… Look, he's my cousin and all, but I wouldn't call him a nice guy, that's all. He rolls with Los Fuegos like you wouldn't believe."

Andy takes a deep breath. "Where can we find Renato?"

Betty Merzana confirms her relationship with Tucker, as well as their typical party-going activities, and before long, Andy and Sam find themselves deep in Los Fuegos territory, approaching the address Tucker has given them. Backup is standing by several blocks away. "Stay close," Sam instructs. "You know we get shootings in these projects all the time, broad daylight or not."

Andy nods; she knows this already, of course, but she's coming to accept that his looking out for her isn't necessarily a judgment on her ability to do her job. "I've got your back."

A quick smile passes over his face, and they get out of the car. They make it to the building and inside without incident. "Apartment 2C," Sam reiterates softly. As they approach the door, loud music drifts out from within the residence. Sam rolls his eyes. "Perfect."

Andy bangs on the door. "Renato Cordero! Police! Open up!" The music somehow gets louder, and Sam motions for her to step back. He kicks the door open in a swift motion, the two of them entering with guns drawn. They clear the living room quickly, then Sam looks at her. "Check that closet, I'll clear the kitchen. Keep your back to the wall."

The closet's filled with assorted crap, but no Renato; as she looks back to call out to Sam, she instead hears a shot ring out, and hears his name being ripped from her throat of its own accord.

Sam's on the ground in the kitchen, groaning and clutching his left side, just above his hip. Renato's above him, poised to shoot again, but Andy takes him down first. "This is McNally. I need backup and two medics to 209 Sackville, 2C. Officer down!" She lets her radio fall with a clatter and immediately rushes to Sam, putting pressure on the wound.

"McNally…"

"It's okay," she says with as wide as smile as she can muster, trying as hard as she can to avoid any flashbacks to the previous year. "This is not… Sam, this is going to be okay. I promise."

The wound isn't bleeding much per se, but Sam's pallor is increasing, and it occurs to her that an internal bleed could be considerably worse than anything she's able to see. "Come on, Sam. What did Zero say to Eight?"

He struggles to smile. "'Nice belt.' I told you that one."

"I know, you did. Um…" She frantically attempts to come up with something else to keep him engaged, but finds herself being pushed out of the way by the paramedics. "That's not great," she hears one mutter to the other as they work to assess the gunshot site and start an IV. By the time they move him onto the stretcher, he's practically gray; as she climbs into the back of the ambulance, he's not saying anything at all.

She closes her eyes against the shrill siren as they race toward the hospital, her hand on his (which is alarmingly cold); indulges herself by bending down and pressing her lips to his forehead. He's still breathing, she tells herself resolutely. That means… well, it means what it means, doesn't it?

* * *

"Can you cover for me?" Nick asks Marlo urgently. "I want to get to the hospital. Be there for Andy."

Marlo shrugs. "We're off in half an hour. If you want to cut out early, I won't say anything, but are you sure it's a good idea?"

"What do you mean?" He's confused. "Of course it is. You don't want to go? You and Swarek dated for however long, and you don't care if he's all right?"

"Of course I care," she counters. "Of course I want him to be all right. But whether he is or he isn't has nothing to do with my being there or not. I'm not a doctor."

Nick scoffs. "Well, Andy's not going to leave, and she needs support too. Someone to bring her a change of clothes, give her a ride home eventually, if nothing else…"

"Nash is on her way," Marlo says without looking up. "She can do all that. Look, Collins…" She meets his eyes, surprisingly sympathetic. "I know you two have been close, but right now she doesn't need you. She needs him to get better."

Nick heads to the locker room and changes into street clothes anyway, makes it out to his car with the intent of heading to the hospital. As he reaches to slip the keys in the ignition, though, he hears Marlo's words in his mind once more. Remembers the panic in Andy's voice over the radio.

He switches his phone off and drives straight home.

* * *

A mass of scrubs-clad individuals assemble alongside the gurney as it bursts through the trauma bay doors. One turns back to her, walking backwards after the stretcher. "Just go to the waiting room. We'll give you an update as soon as we can."

Numb, she follows the signs for the friends-and-family area, realizing only after she takes a seat that her entire body is trembling. She feels herself begin to hyperventilate; knows that any loss of composure will just exacerbate the situation. _Think of someplace else_, she commands herself. So she does. She's not waiting to hear whether Sam lives or dies; she's waiting in the truck for him, in the parking lot of Siam Delights. (They always forget the extra plum sauce, so it's reasonable that he'd have to run back for more.) Waiting in his living room, for whatever this thing is that he wanted - _wants_ to show her. If she closes her eyes really tight and works to ignore the smell of industrial antiseptic, she can just about make it happen.

"Excuse me, you're here for Officer Swarek?" The young woman is back, having donned a short white labcoat over her green uniform.

Andy stands up so quickly she nearly knocks the woman over. "Yes. Hi. Officer Andy McNally."

The woman nods. "I'm Hannah Preston, a medical student. They're taking Officer Swarek up to the OR right now. If you'll follow me, I'll show you where the waiting room up there is."

"Is he…"

Hannah places a gentle hand on Andy's shoulder. "He's stable, but it's pretty serious." They take the elevator to the fourth floor; Hannah motions toward a room not unlike the one they've just left. "Someone will –"

"Give me an update as soon as they can, I know," Andy finishes. "Thanks."

The surgical waiting room is much less crowded than the one in the emergency department. A rather large family is gathered along the far wall, while a middle-aged couple sits just inside the doors, their lips moving silently in what appears to be prayer. Andy selects a seat in the corner, swinging her knees up over the divider between the chairs, and leans her head against the wall.

She must have drifted off, because the next thing she knows, she's got company. Oliver and Dov are sitting beside her; Traci's in the seat across from her, along with Steve Peck. (Trace claims they're just hanging out, but Andy's pretty sure spending one's evening in a hospital waiting room is pretty much the antithesis of casual – as is the way his arm is locked around her shoulder.) Frank is pacing slowly around the area they've staked out.

"No one's been out yet," Traci says before Andy can ask. "It's been… well, it's been a few hours."

Andy nods, settles her feet back on the floor. Some indeterminate amount of time later, a weary-looking man in a surgical cap walks in and makes a beeline for the group of cops; it must be fairly obvious who is here for whom. "I'm Dr. Nelson. You're here for Officer Swarek?"

Those sitting scramble to their feet. "How is he?" Frank asks.

Dr. Nelson smiles. "Surgery went well. He needed several units of blood, but we got the bullet out and the bleeding under control before any major damage was done. We took out the breathing tube in the recovery room – actually, he pulled it out as soon as he started waking up."

(Somehow, this last bit makes Andy feel better than anything else has.)

"At any rate," Dr. Nelson continues, "he's breathing fine on his own, and his vital signs and fluid status are stable. We're transferring him to the ICU right now to watch him for a few days, but everything should be fine."

The group breathes a collective sigh of relief. "Can I see him?" Andy asks.

"Give us ten or fifteen minutes to get him settled, and then one of the nurses will come back and grab you."

"Thank you," she croaks, her friends and colleagues echoing her sentiments. Sure enough, a nurse flags her down shortly and directs her to a single room. Sam's eyes are closed and there's oxygen tubing in his nose, but his color is considerably better than the last time she saw him. Multicolored wires slip out from beneath his patterned hospital gown, up to a large monitor with constantly fluctuating numbers and waveforms mounted on the wall; two or three IV pumps are flashing text across the screen, fluid dripping into plastic chambers. She finds a chair near the wall; pulls it up close to the bed.

"You really need to stop scaring the shit out of me," she whispers shakily.

Sam inhales deeply then, cracks open one eye. "Not like you haven't given me a few heart attacks yourself, you know."

She grins and chokes down the lump that's rapidly growing in her throat; she is _not_ going to cry right now. "Don't say 'heart attack', I don't want to tempt fate."

"Okay," he murmurs. "A few light startles. How's that?"

"Good," she confirms, not even caring that the tears staining her cheeks are currently undermining her previous resolution. "How are you feeling?"

He grimaces. "Like I got shot."

"Do you want, um…" She looks around the room. _Isn't there supposed to be a call button somewhere_? "I can get the nurse, maybe see if you can have some pain medicine?"

"Nah, they gave me some already," he tells her. "I just need… hang on." His hand reaches down over the edge of the bed, finds hers. "There we go. Better already."

She laughs, stifling a sob and rests her head down on the bed, arranging it against his shoulder as gently as she can. "Um, Frank went to your place to take care of… well, he actually wouldn't say what, but he wanted you to know that whatever it is has dealt with. And I know we have to talk and all that, and there's so much I want to say and…"

"It can keep." His other hand tentatively stretches across chest, his fingers splaying through her hair. "Rain check on the curry puffs?"

She sniffles. "You hate curry puffs anyway."

"McNally, I've got however many days of hospital food ahead of me. Pretty sure I love them."

"Pretty sure I love you," she responds without thinking. (Not exactly how she wanted to say it for the first time since their near-implosion, but whatever works.)

Sam, to his credit, manages to feign hurt. "_Pretty _sure? I take a bullet in the flank and get a reprineal hematoma and all I get is _pretty _sure?"

Andy laughs. "A _retroperitoneal_ hematoma, and… I don't think I've ever been more certain of anything. Well, a few things, but nothing this important."

"Love you too, Andy." He's grinning at her, but he's obviously exhausted.

"Go to sleep," she tells him. "I'm not going anywhere."

They settle in, comfortable as they can conceivably expect to become. Andy knows that between the incessantly beeping monitors, nurses in and out of the room all night, and early-morning rounds, getting any kind of quality sleep is going to be next to impossible.

Well. It's not the first time they've been in a next-to-impossible situation.

Somehow, she really likes those odds.


End file.
